A quiet night, a stack of books, a tuna melt on rye

So, in case you didn't know, and I'm not sure why you would, I have very pale skin. I've never tanned in my life; I just turn red and then go right on back to being very white. I even have difficulty buying stockings because they all look darker than my skin tone. So it should go without saying that I use a lot of sunscreen.

I'm sharing all this because it would appear that sometime this weekend I developed an allergy to sunscreen. Both of my arms as well as my neck and upper chest are currently covered in little, red, itchy bumps. I started noticing them appearing on the inside of my right elbow during glowwormtu's concert last night but I thought it was just a weird cluster of bug bites. As of this morning, when my arms were covered, I thought maybe the artifacts I had washed yesterday gave me poison ivy, though it didn't really look like poison ivy.

When my neck broke out I realized it was only on places I've been putting sunscreen while I'm out monitoring. I even used this same sunscreen last week without a problem (although it was new last week, since the previous week I had finished a bottle of a different brand). Looks like I'm going to be trying out that previous brand again... after I take some Benadryl (and go to sleep)

I played receptionist for three hours at work today. The girl who was in charge of relieving the receptionist on her breaks left two weeks ago, so a variety of people around the office have been helping out. Today; however, the full time receptionist was sick, so they were scrounging around to find people to cover all day. I was apparently the least bill-able person for the hours of 11:30 - 2:30, so I got stuck up front. It was kind of interesting.

First, I got to read the first eight chapters of Mockingjay. At work. Not really what I would want to do everyday, but for a Friday afternoon every once in a while, not bad. Then there was some guy, who I don't know (and this is a pretty small office) who was running all over the place looking for his cell phone. He even showed me the app on his computer that showed it was somewhere in the building, and for some reason he needed pliers. I'm not sure that part was related to the cell phone. I even got to receive three different shipments. Who knew.

Probably the saddest part of the whole day, was the shear number of people who felt the need to comment on how I was doing a better job than the person who's job it actually is, in a "why is this so hard for her" sort of way (rather than a "I think you should take over this" sort of way). I feel bad. So yeah, not all that exciting, but this means I posted something a whole three days in a row.

Anyone have a good recipe for trout? I was given two pieces tonight at choir because the husband of one of the other Altos had had a big catch and she didn't want them all in her freezer.

Otherwise, I got to do SCIENCE today at work. You all may not know, but I majored in Chemistry as well as Anthropology at school. So, when the big boss decided that he wanted Phosphorus tests run on some soil samples taken at possible sites, I was the one everyone thought of. It was kind of fun to run around the office with my rubber gloves looking all science-y, but really it just reinforced why I got a job in Archaeology instead of Chemistry. It was really pretty boring and I'm glad that it was just today and maybe a another day or two every once in a while.

The field person who is working in the office this week, who I spoke about yesterday, has decided that I am consistently costuming myself for work. It started off last Wednesday, when it got unexpectedly cold in the office and I put on my long, black, hooded sweater which I keep around for that purpose. She said that I looked like a Harry Potter Character (which to be fair, the sweater reminds me of a robe too).

Then Friday, I was in a black dress with a purple cardigan which has a ruffled neck and a silver clip at the waist to keep it closed. I was informed that I looked like another Harry Potter character, this time a Hufflepuff (yeah I don't know either. Oh and at this point I asked, and the first outfit she thought of as Ravenclaw).

Yesterday, I had a green skirt with smock pockets, a brown t-shirt, and a blue cardigan all of which became a Slytherin outfit. So, today I purposefully wore my red gingham dress with a red cardigan to see if she would go with Gryffindor for the color, or not 'cause really, gingham is not a terrible brave or chivalric looking fabric.

Turns out not was the answer. Instead, I was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I wonder what it will be tomorrow.

This is going to turn into a bit of a work rant, but first there will be some background.  I always like to give fair warning for rant-i-ness. 

I am a professional archaeologist.  I have been for a little over five years and have been at my current company for a little over four and a half.  It will be five come the second of January.  I started out as a field tech and got to the point where I was one of the more respected crew chiefs.  Then, last year about this time I moved into the lab to become one of the historic analysts, which means I identify and catalog all of the historic artifacts our company find.  </back story>

So anyway, right now there are some contractual issues with our major [read only] historic project which mean that we can't do any of the lab work only the field work.  And since we didn't have anything left to do in the lab the other historic analyst and I were sent to help out in the field.  I wasn't my first choice of how to spend my September and October thus far, but it's not too bad.  Except, the current crop of field crew are some of the laziest I've ever seen and it is driving me nuts.  Seriously there is no need to :

• Sit down while using a pick axe.  No really, they work better if you stand up!
• Sitting down to screen.  See above.
• Sitting down to dig.  Once again, see above. 

Okay, really, this is a very physical job.  If you find yourself spending more than ~15% of the day in a seated posititon (and I am including lunch in that approximation) you are doing it wrong! But the part that is really driving me nuts, is that I am no longer part of the field hierarchy, so while I can recognize the problem, there is very little I can do to actively fix it. 

<small>The title here is a direct quote from the project manager on site</small>

So um, what's up with me sucking lately.  Yeah, I'm not sure either.  I'm still staying in town instead of traveling, and will be doing so until at least this time next year, so I suppose part of it is working out a new schedule.  This getting to work thing is slightly more involved when you don't have to just walk down to the hotel parking lot (er.  that just made me sound way lazier than I am.  Especially since I am actually chronically early for everything.)

So I am still loving choir.  *jumps up and down*  It's getting easier, so I guess before I was just rusty instead of the "way out of my depth" that it felt like.  I also got conned into joining handbells (by which I mean some one asked and when I hesitated three more people jumped on to assure me how fun it was, so I had a hard time saying no).  It is slightly more enjoyable than I remember it being in middle school.  Possibly because the handbell choir is not made up of pre-teens. 

I also started doing the whole C25K thing and actually ran for 17 min strait the other night.  It was supposed to be 20, and despite the fact that I didn't make it all the way, I'm rather gobsmacked by what I did.  This is in tiny type because I both feel compelled to share, and am not sure I actually want anyone to know in case I never finish and they keep asking me about it. 

So yeah, tomorrow is likely to bring a pimping post for some land communities.

Wow, I haven't said anything in a while and not for any particular reason.  If done plenty of the "composing entries in my head" thing, and yet, just never seem to sit down and type them out. 

Recently I've been having fun times working in the projects.  They are tearing the old ones down (well the place we're currently working on was just a big empty lot) and building mixed income housing (which everyone is already calling the "new projects").  I know nothing about construction and they threw a fit when one of my bosses came out with me the first day to make sure I was comfortable with monitoring because I'd never done it before -- not really a great start.  Then that boss got sent to Alabama on a project, so I got put under a different boss who had just come back from a *huge* project in Florida and was hoping to take a few days rest.  The back-hoe(or is that track-hoe)/bulldozer driver hit some foundations, so there was no rest to be had.  Oops.  They did turn out to be fairly uninteresting foundations, but we could match them up with a specific house on the old maps, so that was pretty cool. 

Since then I've been watching them dig little holes around pylons that had been driven (apperently 39 feet) into the ground in order to cut them off a few inches below ground level.  I have no idea why.  So I get to stand around and watch a bunch of guys with shovels and the back-hoe.  Really they all crack me up.  I get called Miss Allison (which sort of weirds me out).  I've listened to conversations on whether or not a 22 ft python could eat one of the guys -- a conversation that involved much quoting of animal planet -- and one were an older man advised the best way to pick up girls was to listen to early Micheal Jackson albums and sneak some of the lyrics into your conversation.  If you try that out, let me know how it works, since I'm rather skeptical and don't have a lot of call for picking up girls. 

We even got of work early on Thursday since the project area is near the Super Dome, and they were afraid that we wouldn't be able to get home because of the parade. 

This is going to be one of those posts with a lot of things I've been meaning to put here -- in bullet point-esq form -- because I fail at that whole timely manner thing.  Er yeah. Also I changed me default icon.  Just felt like that needed to be said. 
( Once work related thing )

( Then a bunch of Who related things )There is a possibility there will be another one of these tomorrow featuring a photo from the prom-party and a couple of photos of knitted objects.  Then again, we all remember what I said at the top re: a timely manner, so maybe not. 

In my voice thing, I talked about the latest book I'm reading which is Alex Miller's Journey to the Stone Country.  My mother gave to to me on my last trip home thinking I would enjoy it, which I am.  The people in it share my profession and more surprisingly share the aspect of it I'm in.  They are doing cultural survey ahead of a planned reservoir.  Of course there are differences -- I would never do that much camping (but then I don't camp), and there is a lot more "ped" survey (field walking) than I ever get to do, but every once in while a bit jumps out at me as something I or my co-workers would do or say.  Particularly one portion when two characters are arguing over whether or not early European settlement sites are equally deserving of conservation.  Oh, the historic vs. pre-historic debate. 


Anyway, here's a passage I enjoyed...
"It's the decay and abandonment that moves us in the first place, isn't it? About places like this? It's what makes them so poignant for us.  When we conserve them they lose all that.  We polish them up and cherish them.  We banish their ghosts and make them safe for the future.  We falsify them.  Conserved things become part of our present.  They become ordinary. The very thing we set out to conserve is the thing we inevitably destroy.  We keep the fabric but we lose the spirit.  It's one thing to record the past, but it's something else to conserve it.  I'm not sure I believe in the conservation of places like this."

It may be too early to say *crosses fingers to avoid the jinx,* but it looks like I may get to actually live in my apartment for the next couple of months.  I got assigned to the first week of levee work, was given my own set of maps, and have generally been included in the planning with in the last week.  I could do with some time not living in hotels -- where I can cook real food and sleep on fitted sheets and not have drunk people constantly hanging out outside of my room.  Now if only this could have coincided with choir season instead of being in the summer when the choir is off.  Someday. 

In related news, I now seem to be becoming particularly susceptible to heat rash.  I looked it up and the general consensus for prevention is to stay inside in the air-conditioning and to avoid sweating.  Ummm. Well, my current work is outside, with no shade, in Louisiana, in the summer.  The likelihood of me being able to avoid heat and humidity is non-existent.  Anybody know a good cure for heat rash? I feel like this is doing my part to make archaeology sound way less glamorous than people think it is.